Instead, she launched the webcomic “ Ordinary Things ,” a daily sketch of everyday life where she developed her comic-collage aesthetic. The book was a hit friends urged her to write an autobiographical graphic novel. In 2000, while still living in Turkey, she gave a friend a book of hand-drawn childhood anecdotes as a birthday present. “Dare to Disappoint” emerged from Samanci’s lifelong love for writing and drawing letters for her friends.

It’s also a pivotal time in Turkish history the country is awkwardly transitioning from a nationalist dictatorship to a Western and Muslim nation obsessed with the television show “Dallas.” Throughout the autobiographical book, she wrestles with relatable and universal conflicts, including fitting in, feelings of failure, family expectations and finding her own voice in a hardline conservative school. Samanci’s work has been described as “whimsical,” “charming” and “full of unorthodox surprises. Since its publication, “Dare to Disappoint” has become a bestseller on Amazon the English version is selling well in Samanci’s home country of Turkey, where she “has become the year’s most inspiring figure among comic artists, and a subject of intrigue for Turkish magazines, newspapers and budding artists,” according to The New Republic. Life keeps offering opportunities if you have the openness.” “I was told I was going to end up in a cubicle with a math degree, but things unfolded in a very different way. “It’s the book I would have liked to have read in college,” Samanci said.

By the time she's in first grade, Samanci is learning harsh lessons about the Turkish educational system and her country, which was undergoing intense political and social upheaval during the 1980s and '90s. It’s one of the last times Samanci, now a multi-media artist and assistant professor in the School of Communication, feels jazzed about school in Turkey. When readers first meet Northwestern University’s Ozge Samanci in her graphic novel “ Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey,” she's an adorable six-year-old who sneaks into her older sister’s elementary school classroom and joyfully slides into the seat beside her.

Dare to Disappoint by Ozge Samanci